


The Adventure of the New Detective

by veecamaro3



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Discovery, Friendship, Gen, Sherlock - Freeform, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Sherlock-centric, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24876535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veecamaro3/pseuds/veecamaro3
Summary: Kate gets a little more than she bargained for when she visits her uncle at Scotland Yard.Holy crapola that sucked. Well...this story has Sherlock in it. Who doesn't love that sassy old sociopath.John Watson makes an appearance...sometime. Haven't written that yet haha. But he and Kate know each other well.P.S. I've never titled my work before (it's "sh2" in my computer) so I apologize for the lame name.P.P.S. I have NO idea what it's like to go away to war or be in the military. I got most of my information from google. I have respect for real soldiers and I don't mean to offend anyone.





	1. Who Doesn't Like a Good Murder?

“Kate?”

I slowly lift my head and my vision comes back into focus. The tiny, bald Indian man across the room transitions from a blur into a clear image. I idly think about how he looks like a child in the high-backed chair.

“Hmm?” I mutter distractedly.

“Where did you go just now?”

“I was thinking about where to eat for lunch.”

Dr. Kapoor smiles at me, the way he always smiles when he knows I’m lying. Funny thing is, I wasn’t.

“You have to talk sometime,” he says in his high-pitched accent.

“No, no I don’t,” I say. “I’m here so you can see I’m not off my rocker. I don’t have to tell you any more than that.” I make a show of checking my wristwatch. “I’ve got eight more minutes. Can I plan my lunch in peace?”

“Are you still having nightmares?” Dr. Kapoor asks gently. He’s always nice and genuine, which bothers me. If he would just act like he doesn’t really care it would be easier to ignore him.

“Of course I’m still having nightmares. I doubt in five months those would stop.”

“But you don’t feel like you need to talk.”

“No.”

“And you don’t think anything is wrong.”

I stare blankly in response.

Dr. Kapoor sighs now, the way he always sighs when he tries to get any farther than this. He knows I won’t let him. Two sessions a week and this is as far as we’ve gotten.

“You have to come to terms with your past,” he says. “You can’t pretend as if it never happened.”

“I’m not doing anything but living my life,” I say. “I’m not pretending. I know it happened. I’m just…moving on.”

With a skeptical look, Dr. Kapoor nods once. Again, he thinks I’m lying. Nobody could have gone through what I went through and still act as sane as I do. But I’m fine, really. And I’m still not lying.

“Have a good afternoon, Kate,” Dr. Kapoor says softly, and I think I’ve hurt his feelings this time.

“See you Thursday.”

I get to my feet and all but run out of his office.

Scotland Yard has never impressed me much. It used to impress me, back when I was a child and my dad would bring me around to visit his brother and I would get VIP tours of the facility, but since then I’ve lost my parents, and I’ve been away to war. Nothing really impresses me that much anymore, I suppose.

It’s a dreadfully cheerful afternoon in late June and I’ve just finished another pointless military-mandated therapy appointment with Dr. Kapoor. I suppose after you’ve been taken hostage and miraculously rescued a few weeks before the end of your tour, the Army wants to make sure you’re psychologically stable enough to remain in civilian life. At least for the first year. After a year, I’m no longer obligated to keep up consistent therapy. I will gladly give them up. All these weekly shrink appointments do is remind me of a past I’m trying to forget while pointing out how tragically boring my present is now.

On this dreary afternoon I stop at my favorite fish-and-chips stand and get two orders to go before making my way over to Scotland Yard like I have every Monday and Thursday for the past five months.

I remember the feeling I used to get when I spotted, from across the street, the large white building with the triangular spinning sign out front. My heart would race with excitement, not because there was anything particularly interesting about Scotland Yard to a child, but because I was treated like family. Everyone there knew me. Now, everyone still knows me, but it’s just another building, where I have to subject my purse and chips to a bit of light radiation before being admitted.

I take the lift to the fourth floor and turn right. It’s just after lunch hour, so there’s a good chance my uncle will be eating at his desk or trying to rush through a phone call so he can get down to the canteen and buy something they attempt to pass off as food here. A few feet before my destination I hear the slamming of a phone in its cradle followed by “Bloody cads!” I huff a light laugh and lean against the doorframe of the subsequent office, watching the man behind the desk run his hands over his face.

“Rough day, Lestrade?”

The man drags his hands back down his cheeks. At the sight of me and the casual use of our last name, he grins wide.

“That’s _Detective_ _Inspector_ Lestrade to you,” he chides.

“Actually, it’s Uncle Greg, but I know how that hurts your ego when you’re at work.” I toss the white package of food on his desk. “Had lunch yet?”

“Of course not. I’m starved.” Greg rips into the wrapper and greedily pops a few chips in his mouth. “Ta. So, what have you been up to today, Lestrade?”

“The usual…and that’s _Lieutenant_ Lestrade,” I correct him with a sniff as I dig into my own lunch.

“Right. I like the sound of that.”

“Join the Army.”

“No, thank you,” Greg says hastily. “I’ve got my hands full with enough around here.” He idly munches on a chunk of fish, musing. “Although not much glory here, at Scotland Yard.”

“Yes, because I’m just _rolling_ in glory.”

“I don't mean that, I just…well, I don't know what I mean.” He angrily devours a few more mouthfuls before admitting, “Yes, I do know what I mean. It's that bloody amateur that miraculously finds critical information to cases we’ve been struggling on.”

“What's his name again?”

“Sherlock Holmes.” Greg lets out a defeated sigh. “He's been taking all my glory lately and it gets to me because it's rightfully earned. That pompous arse…”

“You don't have to ask him for help,” I point out.

Greg just stares at me.

“Yes, I do,” he finally says. “That's why it bothers me so much.”

“You're a good detective, Uncle Greg. Don't underestimate yourself. And don't get caught up in the show. From what you've told me, that's all Holmes does. Puts on a show.”

“He puts on a hell of a show, though.”

“Then I don't know what to tell you,” I snap. I love my uncle, but all I've heard about for the past few months is _Sherlock Holmes_ , and it's getting annoying. In the beginning Greg was thankful for his input. Now he's relying on Holmes like a crutch and acting like he doesn't know why. I wasn't wrong; Greg is smart, he's a good detective. He just let someone younger and flashier get in the way of his job.

We eat in silence for a few minutes. Greg looks annoyed, as if he's still thinking about how Sherlock Holmes one-ups him all the time. The only thing that bothers me about Greg's stories is how horribly Holmes treats people. If I ever met him, I'd give him a right good kick up his –

“It was the sister,” a low voice says swiftly from behind me.

I jump, as does Greg, even though he’s facing the door.

“Jesus…” Greg mutters, then, “What?”

“It was the sister,” the man in the doorway says again, without a single syllable variation. He stands tall with his hands in his long gray overcoat pockets, observing the room like he's slightly amused, as if he sees something we don't. “The brick dust on her shoes wasn't brick dust. It was finely ground pumpkin seeds and paprika, the same consistency as the powder used in the sister’s homemade tonics.”

“All right, then,” Greg says easily, and the man’s face pulls into a slight smirk.

“Hang on,” I say. “Why do those things incriminate someone? And isn't Scotland Yards’ forensics team capable of analyzing that? What did they need you for?”

The man’s smirk gets a tiny bit wider. “Afternoon,” he says with a shallow nod, and promptly disappears.

I frown at the empty doorway. So that's Sherlock Holmes, huh. Greg wipes his hands on his pants and types something into his computer.

“I can see why he bothers you,” I say shrewdly.

Greg shrugs one shoulder. “He has his quirks, but he's been right one hundred percent of the time.”

“How long has he been– ” I struggle to find the right word “– _assisting_ Scotland Yard?”

“Few years now.”

“Hmph.” I slump back in my chair, fold my arms over my chest. I keen for a subject change. “What cases are you on now?” I eventually ask. “Anything I’d like?”

“Nothing that I could talk to you about without getting my arse handed to me.”

“Aw, come on, I won’t tell.” I have to keep from pointing out that he tells Sherlock Holmes case-sensitive information basically on a daily basis. “I might even have some ideas that help you solve the case again. I’m a regular detective.”

“You pointed out _one_ thing in _one_ case ages ago.”

I wrinkle my nose. “But that _thing_ helped you get a conviction.”

Greg grits his teeth, contemplating. “All right. Because I really want to spend my lunch hour talking about work…”

In between bites, Greg sifts through the manila folders on his desk. He opens a few, flips through some pages. Eventually he opens one near the bottom of the pile and produces a crime scene photo.

“Here’s a rather gory one for you,” he says, handing me the photo. I grin eagerly and he rolls his eyes. “Like you didn’t get enough of that in Afghanistan.”

“That was different,” I say. “People were fighting for something. Blood and guts, that’s just the result. But _murder_...” My eyes scan over the dead girl in the photo. Pale and lifeless, bruising around her ankles, wrists, neck. “It takes a lot to kill someone. People have to go to great lengths to take someone’s life this way.”

I hand the photo back to Greg and zealously gesture for more. He winces and reluctantly hands me a small stack.

“You’re really twisted, you know that?” he says.

“Not as much as some people.”

Greg chuckles as we exchange photographs again. “You know, you sort of sound like Sherlock Holmes.”

My head jerks up at the mention of that man’s name. I toss the picture back on the desk as an uncomfortable nausea swells in my stomach.

“Maybe it’s time for me to go.” I get to my feet. “I’ll see you later, Uncle Greg.”

“Bye, Kate.”

After I round the doorway, I hear Greg mutter quietly, “ _Detective Inspector_ Lestrade,” under his breath. I smile and head for home.

The following weeks pass in a similar fashion. Inconsequential, uneventful. Not being able to afford the finer parts of London, I live in one of the poorer districts, Tower Hamlets, in cheap housing that I can barely afford with my Army pension. Due to the particularly shady disposition of pretty much all my close-quarter neighbors, I tend to stay in my room five days out of the week. The remaining two days I have contact with two people: Dr. Kapoor and Greg. My social circle is embarrassingly small.

Meeting Greg after my therapist appointments has become somewhat of a habit. To say that he’s my only friend would be…well, sadly, accurate, so as the weeks wear on I strive for more human contact. Naturally, I don’t get any.

It’s August first. Yesterday was scorching hot for the end of summer, and as the calendar turns to a new month the weather seems to apologize, as there’s a cool breeze when Greg and I exit Scotland Yard to eat somewhere other than his office for a change. Halfway through lunch, he gets a phone call.

“DI Lestrade,” Greg says, sounding very official. “Where?...Yeah, on my way.” He closes his phone and pockets it with a contrite look on his face. “Sorry, Kate. We’re going to have to cut lunch short.”

Instead of getting offended, I chew a bite of food musingly as I nod a few times. “Or,” I say casually, “I can tag along.”

Greg lets out a groan and a sigh. “Kate, we’ve been over this before–”

“Just let me come. Say I was already in the car when you got the call.”

He doesn’t submit, but he stops protesting. I figure the battle is about halfway won. I can now pull out the Lonely-Discharged-Veteran card, which has worked before, but I would rather him want me to come along than be guilted into it. I settle for a pleading guise and stare insistently at him until he caves.

Finally, he says with a defeated sigh: “All right, let’s go.”

We walk back to Scotland Yard to get Greg’s work-issued vehicle, a very slick gray BMW sedan. Riding in his car is one of the few times I actually get to drive. I could only ever dream of affording my own car. Not like it’s really needed here where everyone either walks, calls a cab, or uses the Tube, but I drove a Hum-V in Afghanistan a lot, and I grew fond of driving.

We make our way south, to Wimbledon, where a man has apparently committed suicide in the pond at his estate.

“I don’t understand why you beg to come along on cases or ask to see so many gruesome photographs all the time,” Greg says.

“I’ve always been interested in this stuff, you know that,” I say. “Dad brought me to Scotland Yard a lot as a kid…I suppose it just stuck with me.”

“So why did you join the Army instead of becoming a detective?”

I shrug, but he doesn’t see it. “We never had much money. If I joined the Army, my college education would be paid for.”

“You never expected to get shipped off to war, did you?”

“Brilliant deduction, Uncle Greg.”

“And now look where it’s got you.”

“I’m doing a lot better,” I say sourly. Greg chuckles lightly and I decide to replace the conversation with music on the radio.

I put on some oldie’s station. Greg absentmindedly taps his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat and occasionally hums along, but I’ve passed being distracted by music. My mind wanders back to a year ago in Afghanistan, where I almost died...

I joined the Army when I was nineteen, after my dad died. My mom passed when I was too young to remember her. A lifetime of bad planning and poor judgement meant they had nothing to their name, so, freshly orphaned, I had nothing, either. Joining the military was twofold: they would pay for my college, and I would go someplace where I wouldn’t have to remember how utterly alone I was. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing. At the time, all was quiet on the front. I trained, took classes. It didn’t really seem all that dangerous to me. I thought I would just skirt by, avoiding real combat. Then September 11thhappened. The insane act of terrorism on the United States that sent the entire world into an uproar. Suddenly we were at war, and I wasn’t ready for it. I never thought it would come to that. I was going into combat, and I needed to either go a fighter or go a coward. I chose a fighter.

It was like a switch had been flipped in my brain. I was no longer content flying under the radar. Slowly, I moved my way up the ranks. By the time I was twenty-four I had become Second Lieutenant. Two years later I moved up to Lieutenant, and with the promotion came a specialized 10-man special-ops troop. We were among a handful of other specialized troops trained specifically for undercover infiltration of enemy territory. We learned extensive combat, camouflage and stealth, trained in the language and culture of the natives.

I pushed my troop harder than any other special-ops Lieutenant. I wasn’t rude about it, though, I made sure of that. I had been told countless times that I was a good leader, someone they were proud to follow, because I didn’t abuse my power and I didn’t enjoy pushing people around. I knew there was a job to be done and it had to be done right.

In 2006, British forces moved into Helmand province in the south, one of Afghanistan's most volatile regions. Camp Bastion was built in the desert, and here the eleven of us became the most elite special-ops troop in the British Army. At the end of 2007, almost six years after the start of the war, we were dispatched into one of the most dangerous missions we had yet faced. Myself and five of my best men and women, and a tiny US division of five soldiers, teamed up to go undercover to infiltrate the heart of the Taliban and take out their leaders.

We set out to Sangin on June 13, 2007. We were ambushed on the second day of our journey. My soldiers and four of the Americans were assassinated on the spot. They kept myself and one American soldier, Dalton, as leverage. It had nothing to do with our ranks– it was purely by chance. After Dalton and I were taken hostage, I wasn’t sure whether I would have rather been killed with my team or not. Even though I was subjected to torture, it meant I was alive. And if I was alive that meant I could get out.

Dalton and I were tortured daily for information about our respective militaries. Of course, neither of us spoke a word. I retreated into myself, found a way to shut off my brain in order to endure the most formidable disregard for human life I could have ever imagined.

December 27, 2007. I will never forget that day. It was 195 days into our captivity and Dalton was struggling. He had been struggling for the past two months to stay alive. I kept telling him to hold on, push through it, think of getting out of there. After six months and twelve days, that was a very difficult thing to do.

It was dark, almost midnight. Two members of the Taliban came in to our holding cell. Dalton did the unthinkable. When the two Taliban got close enough to where Dalton was hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, he shot me one last apologetic look and kicked one of the men in the crotch. They killed him instantly.

I was alone, the most alone I had ever been in my life. More alone than after my dad died. I was alone and helpless, and for one solid hour I began to contemplate my situation and wonder if Dalton had done the right thing.

At two in the morning on December 28, the US and British military attacked Sangin. I was rescued.

I woke up in the Army medical base in Northumberland a week later. Stayed there for another three weeks until I was honorably discharged. I was thrown back into civilian life and I found that I was strangely okay. I adapted well. Occasionally I would be haunted with flashbacks, but I kept waiting for the post-traumatic stress everyone talks about when they return from war. I figured I was still in shock, or denial, and eventually it would wear off and I would be unable to function. But here I am, six months later, still functioning.

A small part of me thinks that when I retreated into my mind in captivity I never fully came back out. I’ve been functioning, but I haven’t been _me_.

My thoughts are interrupted when Greg turns onto a long drive lined with police cars and a coroner’s van. The privacy of the estate meant there were limited rubbernecking pedestrians to nose about.

Greg parks the car and we walk up the gravel path. The house is remarkable, the gardens lush and colorful. I hardly notice that, though. Along a smaller building on the grounds a small group of people stand beside a flower bed and a large pond. At their feet is a lumpy white sheet unsuccessfully hiding the body they apparently just pulled from the pond, since the sheet is damp and forming to the outline of the corpse.

“What have we got?” Greg asks when we approach.

“Jack Downing, forty-three year old male, apparent suicide,” Sergeant Sally Donovan recites from her notebook, sounding incredibly bored, like she has better places to be than investigating a dull suicide. She looks up and spots me. She smiles awkwardly and shoots Greg a sour look. “Hello, Kate. It’s nice to see you…here.”

Translation: Why are you intruding on our crime scene?

I chuckle and grin expectantly at Greg, who offers up the same defeated sigh as he did a lunch.

“I let her tag along,” he says.

Sally, as rude and vain as ever, clenches her jaw, most likely to fight back a biting comment of how I could have at least stayed in the car, this is private police business, et cetera et cetera. Anticipating this, I tell Greg, “I’ll just wander.”

“I saw some interesting rocks near the drive,” Sally says casually.

Translation: Head back to the car and don’t contaminate our crime scene.

I roll my eyes and slowly walk towards the opposite end of the path, near the main house. I think I spot Jack Downing’s wife, the crying woman on the front steps talking to two policemen. She nods and they walk away. I approach her without really considering my actions.

“Was he your husband?” I ask.

“Yes.” She sniffs and pats her red nose with her sleeve.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She shakes her head violently. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

I shrug. “Suicide never really does.”

“Jack had no reason to kill himself,” she says vehemently. I get the impression she had this conversation moments ago with the policemen and got nowhere. “We were happy. Planning a tropical vacation. I know my husband, he wasn’t depressed.”

“You told the police this?”

“Of course I did. They don’t believe me. They’ve made up their minds because the _evidence_ doesn’t support anything but suicide.”

“They’re just beginning their investigation,” I tell her. “Keep persisting, and if they don’t find anything…” I let my sentence die, because I don’t really know what the next step would be if the conclusion they come to isn’t to her satisfaction.

The look on her face matches my thoughts. She knows there’s nothing they can do if the evidence points to suicide. And I’ve heard Greg complain about cases like this. Try as he might, when his detectives and policeman have their minds made up about something, they stop looking at the big picture and see only what they want to see.

Like a bolt of lightning, my eyes widen, and the image of Sherlock Holmes flashes in my forebrain. Suddenly, I think I know why he does what he does. He finds the answers to the questions no one asks, finds solutions when there wasn’t a problem.

He could find murder in a suicide.

I dig in my pockets for a scrap piece of paper. I find an old receipt, but no pen.

“Hang on,” I tell the widow, and trot back around the house to Greg. I wait impatiently for him to finish his conversation with the CSI, but he takes too long. I reach over slowly and pry the pen from his limp fingers. I write two words on the blank side of the receipt and stick the pen back in Greg’s hand without him ever missing a beat.

I return to Mrs. Downing and hand her the receipt. She scans it quickly and looks confused. “Sherlock Holmes?”

“I don’t have an address for him, or a number. In fact I’ve only seen him once. But I’ve heard stories. He can help you. If you don’t like the way this all turns out…look him up.” I sigh. I can’t believe I’m about to vouch for Sherlock Holmes. “If you think your husband was murdered and the police don’t, I guarantee you this man can find the truth.”

She nods, and a bit of life sparks in her eyes. I know the feeling. She’s not helpless anymore. She now holds a possible alternative to get justice for her dead husband when the authorities will inevitably fail her.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and retreats back into her house.

Despite not having seen the body, the only real thing of interest at a crime scene, I wander on the outskirts of the garden, observing. Greg flits from person to person, interrogating, supervising evidence collection (of which I’m sure there will be little). He talks to Sally at one point, and I see her shoot a glance at me twice during that conversation. Her thick black curls and dark skin make her beady brown eyes look menacing from this distance. I might as well get closer, where she loses her bite and becomes all bark.

“How’s the investigation coming, _Detective Inspector_ ,” I say obnoxiously to Greg, more to annoy Sally than to demean my uncle.

“Looks pretty cut and dry,” Greg says. It sounds like he wants to say more, but under Sally’s murderous glare, he doesn’t. By the tone of his voice, he thinks something’s up. But Sally doesn’t work that way. She operates with blinders on. This looks like a suicide, so it will be a suicide. Nothing interesting about that.

“We’re almost finished here,” Sally says. “I can supervise the CSI’s.”

Translation: We don’t need you anymore. Take your niece where she’ll be wanted.

“All right, thanks Sally,” Greg says. He guides me back to the car.

When we’re out of Sally’s hawk-like earshot, I say, “Doesn’t it bother you, the way she talks to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You mean you don’t see it? She’s completely rude.”

“I’ve got more important things to worry about than that petty shite.”

“But you know she does it.”

“Of course. But it’s pointless to let it bother me. I still know I’m her boss and I can make her work the desk for month if it ever _does_ bother me.”

He grins widely from across the top of the car and we both laugh. We get inside and drive away.

By the end of August I seriously keen for a new routine. I shudder to think of it, but what I could really use is a _job_. I technically don’t _have_ to work if I’m extremely frugal with my pension, but I want something to do. Greg keeps making snide hints about what I’m doing with my life, and that’s going to get annoying real quick. After all, I’m almost twenty-eight, I’ve never had a relationship, and my biggest achievements all occurred in the military. None of that really matters out here.

I only really did two years of college in the Army before the war started. I suppose I could go back to school for another year, get my undergraduate degree, but what would I specialize in? I spent eight years in the military. I have no sense of who I am or what I want anymore.

There’s always detective work, like Greg suggested a few months back. I wouldn’t be a detective for a long while, though. First the academy, then training in uniform for a few years, and let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger. I’m sure he could get me a desk job at Scotland Yard easily enough, but where’s the fun in that?

I battle with these thoughts for a few weeks. As I get more consumed with finding my identity post-military, my therapy appointments become scantier still. It's a different kind of silence now. I don't speak because the gears in my brain are actually turning, clearing away the stagnant cobwebs that I let grow for fear of thinking _too_ much and becoming absorbed in the PTSD version of myself that hasn't yet bloomed. Even the nightmares become scarcer, to the point where I don't have to rely on whiskey to help me sleep as much anymore. I think I may actually be healing.

My birthday, October 26, falls on a Sunday this year. How incredibly _boring_. I've become more mundane than I could ever imagine. Not that my life was such a party in my teenage years.

Greg takes me to Zizzi’s for dinner, at his insistence. The food is amazing, yet incredibly overpriced. The restaurant is too fancy for my taste, but since he insisted, I didn’t object. I order lasagna, he a calzone, and a glass of red wine each. I get a free birthday dessert that’s really too small to share but I do anyway. We’re finished by nine and I’m home a half-hour later.

The evening was simple and I honestly had nothing to complain about once I remembered that this night was one hundred thousand times better than how I’d spent my twenty-seventh birthday.

Inside my flat, I open up the front window and gaze at the night sky. Well, what I can see of it in the small strip of space between my building and the next. It’s a chilly evening, and it feels nice. After the dry heat of the desert with thirty-something pounds of gear on my back, this is heaven.

When the usual late night chatter of my druggie neighbors kicks in, I close my window and retreat to the sofa and watch the telly for a bit. It’s like any Sunday evening.

The program ends and I bore my eyes into the wall while I wait for the next one to start. I purse my lips and wiggle them back and forth. Tap my foot against the floor. Crack my knuckles. Ugh.

“I want chips,” I say aloud to no one. I grab my coat, put on my shoes, and venture out into London nightlife.

London nightlife on a Sunday evening is pretty dull. The only chips place I know that’s open this late is at St. Katherine’s Pier, near the Tower Bridge. It’s only a few miles from my flat but that means I have to brave the London Borough for a couple of blocks until I reach streets with better lighting and more people.

I reach the stand alive and find Pete, the owner, reading the evening paper. Pete’s in his mid-fifties, completely bald, unmarried, and is one of the happiest people I’ve ever met.

“Hi, Pete,” I say when I arrive at the counter.

“Kate! Lovely evening.” Pete gets off his stool and peeks down at me with a light chuckle. “Still haven’t grown, have you?” he says teasingly.

I give an exaggerated sigh. “Still haven’t lowered your stand?”

Pete laughs. “You know that’s how I keep out robbers. Look at ol’ McNally – he’s been robbed twice! With that pathetic low countertop, no protection there.”

“Pete, not everyone is as short as I am. The average-height robber could easily jump this,” I point out.

He frowns at me, but he never stays mad for long. “What’ll it be, love?” he asks cheerily.

“Just chips, please.”

“Mind waitin’ a few? I’ll put on a fresh batch.”

“Always,” I say with a grin as I hand over money.

I let Pete get to work and wander over to the railing next to the shallow slope of the pebble shore. The Thames is calm, an almost obsidian slab reflecting the lights on either side of the water. The sky is a clear midnight blue, with a few pinpricks of stars and light wisps of clouds. It really is a lovely evening.

“You sent Jane Downing to me,” a low voice says from behind me.

I jump and swirl around, body tensed and heart racing. “Geeze!” I grit my teeth at the sight of the man I’ve only seen once before, four months ago. And I didn’t care for him much _then_. “You know, it’s perfectly acceptable to start a conversation with _hello_.”

“Why?” he asks, and it surprises me that he sounds genuinely curious.

“So you don’t _scare_ people to death, you lunatic!” I don’t point out that if I hadn’t been so relaxed beforehand I would probably have him in a chokehold right now, despite his height.

“Oh.” He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his long gray overcoat. “I just figured I would get right to the point. Save time and all. I mean, I would have saved time if you would have reacted normally–”

“I _did_ react normally,” I growl.

“–however that point is completely moot as I’ve wasted twice as much time explaining to you _why_ I would have saved time if we would have continued on normally in the first place,” he continues, as if I hadn’t even spoken.

“You say ‘normally’ a lot for a man who doesn’t seem that normal,” I say.

“Kate!” Pete calls, and I eagerly turn my back to Sherlock Holmes. “This bloke botherin’ you?”

 _Yes, but not in the way you think_ , I say to myself. Then, aloud, “No, it’s okay, Pete. I know him. Sort of.”

“Well, got your order, love. I put in a bit extra for you.” He winks.

“Thanks, Pete. Have a good night.”

“You, too. Stay safe.”

Pete eyeballs Sherlock as he strides agilely to my side. I roll my eyes at Pete and walk past Sherlock, completely absorbed in my chips. Sherlock follows uninvited.

“What do you want?” I snap, rounding on him.

“To ask why you sent Jane Downing to me. As if that weren’t obvious from my previous statement.”

“Because she needed help,” I say. “Isn’t _that_ obvious?”

“ _No_ ,” he says, and the way he says it makes me stop and look at him. “I want to know what made you send her to me. You were at the crime scene?”

“Yes.”

“What did you _see?_ What made you think that her husband’s death wasn’t a suicide?”

“She said it wasn’t.”

“I suppose if you were to take people’s word for things wholeheartedly, I can tell you I have the ability to fly and, by that logic, you would indeed believe I can fly?”

I blink a few times in the silence in an attempt to process how this man can be so thick. He’s seriously mad.

“I don’t know,” I eventually say. “It was a combination of things.” I pick through my chips and take a bite of one. Chew it slowly. Make him wait impatiently. “Why do you care? That case was months ago. Haven’t you solved it?”

“Of course I did. I solved it the day after Jane came to visit. What I want to know is why _you_ thought it was murder.”

I scoff and resume walking. “The wife was adamant that he didn’t kill himself. And there was something in my uncle’s demeanor that made me think _he_ thought it wasn’t suicide, either. But the evidence didn’t point to murder, as far as I know.”

“Typical Lestrade, limiting himself to the abilities of his inferiors.”

“Oi, that’s my _uncle_ you’re talking about.”

“I can’t see how you two are related if he lacked the mental capacity you seemed to have in order to help prove this case was not, in fact, suicide.”

Again, I’m struck by his bluntness. It takes my brain a moment to process what he says because he speaks so fast and words his sentences strangely. I finally work out that he managed to insult Greg and compliment me in the same breath.

“So what was the verdict, then?” I ask.

“Murder,” he says simply, with a faint smile. Without provocation he jumps into his inquiry at lightning-speed. “End of last year, Sir Harry Downing died. Left the house to the older son, Jack Downing. The house was to stay in the family though – it was to go to Keith, the younger brother, if Jack died without having any kids. So, early August, Jack is found dead in the garden pond. No signs of struggle. High levels of alcohol in his bloodstream. Looks like a tragic accident – look like Keith gets the house.

“I went to the house, then. The pond is on the side wall. No windows, so nobody could have thrown anything out at the victim. No footprints in the flower bed. Path is loose gravel – fairly narrow but not dangerously so. Jack couldn’t swim. He believed in superstitious nonsense like spilling salt, and he wasn’t a drinker, usually just beer. He must have slipped on the gravel and fallen in. At this point, looks like an accident.

“Upon further enquiry of the garden I noticed traces of green paint in the gravel. In two specific patches, about a metre apart. It had to have been a ladder. No windows in the wall so it’s an unlikely place to put a ladder. And if you were to put a ladder there, you’d put it in the flower bed, not on the path. The house gardener confirmed there’s no green ladder on the property. So, the ladder was brought to the house and placed there for some other reason.

“It all flowed rather quickly from there. Keith knew his brother was superstitious. While out of town, he arranged for a friend to put a ladder there – knowing Jack would walk _around_ it. There was a bottle of Scotch in the house which Keith had sent to Jack – knowing he wasn’t much of a drinker. Jack drinks the whiskey, easily gets drunk, goes for a walk. Loose gravel, dark night – sees the ladder. Bad luck to walk under the ladder, so he walks around it – right into the pond where he drowns.”

This is by far the longest silence yet. Sherlock waits, hardly breathless after his spiel. I gingerly reach for a chip and eat that slowly. I’m nothing if not appalled. Greg’s stories were, for the most part, accurate. Sherlock Holmes is a pompous arse, but he’s positively _intelligent_. From the way he asked so innocently about why I reacted the way I did when he startled me makes me think he’s not all there on the social scale. He doesn’t interact with people much so he simply doesn’t know how to. Not that that’s an excuse for being a general know-it-all prick, but still.

I have to hide my amusement. So far I’ve given an air of general loathing for him and I can’t let him know he’s swayed me this easily. I ask the only thing my tiny brain manages to think up: “What made _you_ take the case?”

Sherlock offers a large smile. “Jane was convinced Keith killed her husband. Keith had a cast iron alibi. I love cast iron alibis.”

It takes all my strength to not laugh. I nod a couple of times until I find my evening spoils once more. I extend the box. “Chip?”

Sherlock’s eyes dart from my hand to my face a few times, giving me the impression that he isn’t usually met with this generosity, before he warily reaches out and takes one. After a half-second inspection of the chip that he very well knows I didn’t tamper with but probably thinks he was being too sly for me to notice, he eats it.

We pick up a light walk. Or rather, I move on and Sherlock follows. I have no idea why. Nor do I have any idea what to say to him. Despite suddenly wanting to know _everything_ about this man, I find that I have nothing to ask.

“I kind of liked it, you know,” he says after a few moments. “Being sent a client instead of fishing for cases at Scotland Yard.”

“Greg says you’ve got quite a reputation.”

“Who?”

I frown. “Greg. Lestrade. My _uncle_.”

“Ah, right.”

I roll my eyes and eat a few more chips. I offer him more but he lifts his hand to politely refuse.

“You should put out ads in the paper or something,” I suggest. “I’m sure people would come to you.”

“Perhaps I will.” Sherlock slows his walk and I turn to face him. With his hands tied up in his pockets, he gestures with his torso to the general area. “Well, this is my stop.”

I glance around. We’ve reached the base of Tower Bridge. There isn’t anything of real significance here since there’s no access to the bridge from this side, and unless he doubles back the way we came, he has to walk all the way to the main street. His sudden need to part ways strikes me as odd, like he’s either leaving because he just can’t stand another moment with me, or because he wants a dramatic exit.

“Where’re you headed?” I ask, and I figure that’s an innocent enough question.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Just off.”

I shake my head in an exasperated way. He must really want to get away from me, then. “All right, then. Have a good evening.”

I make my way back, alone. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t say another word, and this time, he doesn’t follow.


	2. Do I Have a Crush on a Psychopath?...Possibly (In Progress)

As the months wear on I find myself thinking of Sherlock Holmes more than I want to admit. Since our late night conversation on my birthday, I’ve taken evening strolls through various parts of London almost every day. When I walk, I try to occupy my mind by being more engaged in mundane things like the color of the sky or the sounds of the city than I really need to be, but no amount of monotonous thoughts can overpower the fact that I’m really just hoping to run into Sherlock Holmes again. You’d think after a month of trying I’d give up, but here I am, two months later, still strolling.

It doesn’t help that I tend to see Sherlock Holmes when he isn’t there. I’ll see a man’s dark hair and think it’s him, but upon closer inspection I’ll notice that the man’s hair is too short, and not curly enough. I’ll see any tall dark fellow in a long overcoat and my heart will skip a beat. But no one I’ve noticed has ever matched the clear blue of his eyes. Anyone can have blue eyes, but _his_ eyes aren’t just blue. I think it’s the way they’re set in his face, surrounded by fine eyebrows and prominent cheekbones. There’s a sort of depth to them, and I find myself wishing I had stared at his beautiful face more than I had that one night.

I haven’t mentioned my sudden infatuation with Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Kapoor. Even though I’m sure the fact that I found interest in another human being besides Greg and all the dead bodies he investigates would make me seem sane, having to actually describe Sherlock would make it less so. To admit that I spend most night and day dreaming of that insane… _psychopath_ …would set me on a true course for at least another six months of therapy.

I look forward to Christmas this year in a similar way I did to my birthday – for the sole fact that I will be spending it one hundred thousand times better than I did the previous year. There’s just an added bonus that my therapy appointment falls on Christmas, and that means I don’t have to go. That’s one less day I have to avoid an hour of unwanted conversation.

My feat for this holiday, however, will be finding a gift for Greg. I’m thinking a nice, large bottle of Scotch that he and I can share once he unwraps it, seeing as he and I will be spending a lonely evening in my tiny flat in the Tower Hamlets since he and his wife are recently separated.

I spend the week before Christmas preparing my flat. I don’t have much money to spend on decorations, but I buy a half-dead tree, and some ornaments from the clearance bin at Harrods. Tinsel on the mantel, a small and positively ugly snowman figurine on the coffee table, a cheap string of lights over the archway to the kitchen. Making my flat festive is a proud accomplishment.

I’m not much of a cook and neither is Greg. In light of this, he offers to bring the main course on Christmas Day if I provide dessert. Around two in the evening of said day, there’s a knock on my door. I open it to find Greg in a Santa hat and ugly green sweater with a third-dimensional reindeer nose on it, his arms loaded with take-away boxes.

“Merry Christmas!” he says cheerily. He kisses my cheek and takes a sniff. “Smells good. What’re you baking?”

“Welsh cakes. And I’ve got a trifle in the fridge.”

I take the box and Greg crosses the flat in seven strides to deposit a small gift bag under the tiny tree next to the silver-wrapped box that is his gift.

“Merry Christmas, by the way,” I call from the kitchen as I unpack the food. “Eat on plates or right from the box?”

“Plates. It’s Christmas, we could not be bums for a meal.” I hear Greg grunt as he falls onto the sofa, then the muffled sounds of the telly. “Is there a match on?”

“Don’t know, I don’t like sports.”

I spoon noodles and rice onto plates and bring the entrées to the coffee table. The telly erupts in cheering, so I assume Greg’s found a match. We relax and fill up on Chinese food. Greg curses a lot at the telly for reasons that are mysterious to me. Men in ridiculously short trousers kick around a ball. I can’t see why that’s interesting.

About an hour later, we’re hungry again. In the kitchen, Greg picks at leftovers while I boil water for tea and prepare the desserts.

“How’re you doing on the employment front?” Greg asks out of nowhere.

I freeze, my hand midway between the pan and plate where I’ve been transferring Welsh cakes. I recover quickly so as not to make him suspicious.

“I don’t need a job, Greg,” I say. “I’m doing just fine.”

“If you had a job you’d have something to do, and you could maybe move out of this du– er, place.” My murderous glare makes him change his wording.

“This place isn’t the best but I like it. And I’ve been talking walks.”

Greg laughs. “Walks? That’s what occupies all your free time?”

“Why are you so concerned?” I snap, shoving the plate of cakes at him. We move our argument from the kitchen back to the tiny living room and I fix up two cups of tea.

“I was only asking because I found you a place to work,” Greg says. “It’s a few days a week, and I think your twisted brain might like it.” He pokes my temple, and I smile.

“What could possibly satisfy my twisted brain?”

“You’d be assisting the specialist registrar in the mortuary at St. Bart’s Hospital.”

Just like on the telly, I spit out my tea. “ _What?_ ”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“You’re mad…”

Greg avoids my face for a minute or so while I sit processing this. When I don’t say anything more, he asks, “So, do you want the job?”

“Of course I do,” I say nonchalantly, as if he had asked about the weather instead. I hand him one of the Welsh cakes and that ends the conversation.

At half-time, we exchange gifts. Greg unwraps his Dalmore Scotch, which he promptly opens and pours out into two glasses before digging deeper into the package to find Warped Flor de Valle cigars.

“Oh-hh,” Greg croons lovingly as he cradles the black box. “Kate, you spoil me.”

“I expect you to love me forever since those cost more than my rent.”

“You didn’t have to, you know.”

“Yeah, I did. It’s our first Christmas together in almost a decade,” I explain lightly. Greg eyes me beadily and I break. “All right, all right. It was a bit selfish, too. I wanted it, and it was too indulgent of a gift to get for myself.”

“I knew it,” he says with a hearty laugh. He nudges the gift bag he brought for me. “Go on, open it.”

Even though he persisted, Greg doesn’t seem that interested in my reaction as I open my gift. He carefully chooses a cigar instead of watching me unravel a gorgeous silver bracelet. It’s a fine piece of jewelry, pretty expensive honestly. I try to look enthusiastic about it but in the back of my mind I know he must have originally bought it as a gift for his wife and couldn’t return it after their split.

“Thank you, Greg,” I say.

“You’re welcome.” He hands me a glass and holds up his own. “To a Merry Christmas,” he toasts.

“And a Happy New Year,” I finish, and we clink glasses. The euphoric bliss that flushes my body the moment the amber liquid touches my lips tells me I made the right choice in Greg’s Christmas gift. But, self-indulgent my ass. I’m buying a bottle of the stuff the next time I can afford it.

“Wow, that’s fantastic,” Greg says exasperatedly as he smacks his lips. He sets down his glass and replaces it with a cigar. “Let’s light up.”

We sink back into the sofa, puffing our cigars. In roughly ten minutes my flat smells like a gentleman’s club and I revel in the scent.

“We must look so elegant,” I muse. “I don’t know how you can stand those stale cigarettes you smoke.”

“They aren’t stale,” Greg says, sounding almost offended. “And I can’t really go down and have a cigar on my break now, can I?”

“Hmm, I would.”

“When you get you breaks at Bart’s, then, have a cigar. Here, go on, take another one.” He shoves an unlit cigar in my hands. “And send me a picture.”

“You know I will.”

A few glasses of Scotch later and the football match on telly suddenly becomes exceedingly interesting to me. Greg and I drink, cheer, drink some more, boo and curse. By the end of the match he can’t walk and the Scotch is half gone. He spends the night on my sofa and as I fall asleep in my bed I remember why I like to drink – so I can sleep easily.

Three weeks later I’m eternally released from therapy appointments just in time to start my new job at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, which is more of a research facility now instead of a functioning infirmary. The specialist registrar I work under is the exact opposite of what I imagined. I pictured a creepy bald man with a lazy eye and a hint of necrophilia doing the post-mortems, but instead I find an unmistakably normal young woman. Early thirties, brown hair, sort of nervous and skittish, like a mouse. Her name is Molly Hooper.

“I’ll just have you help with the filing for now,” Molly tells me in her office on my first day. “The paperwork is the hardest part for me. I’m always forgetting things.”

“So I’ll get to cut open the bodies on day two, then?” I say with a chuckle, finding myself very amusing. By the look on Molly’s face I’ll say I probably overstepped my boundaries during the first ten minutes, though. “Sorry,” I add sheepishly.

“No, it’s all right,” Molly says. Her lips quiver into a smile as she turns away, and just as quickly she faces me again. With a sharp intake of air, she says, “You reminded me of someone is all.”

I laugh lightly again, picturing the bald lazy eye necrophiliac, and ask, “Who?”

“Just someone who hangs around the mortuary a lot…he studies the bodies, does experiments. Well, when he’s not experimenting in the lab.”

“Like what, an over-zealous medical student?”

“No, I think he’s beyond schooling, and he doesn’t work here either. He helps Scotland Yard quite a bit. He usually asks about the bodies under investigation.”

My lips part slightly, not quite enough for a full on jaw-drop, but enough to show my shock. Molly’s flushed cheeks return to their pale pallor at the sight of me.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Not…Sherlock Holmes?” I ask in almost a whisper.

Molly’s brows pull together. “Yes. Do you know him?”

“Not really…”

I try to calm my heart but it’s picked up a fast beat and I’m afraid it’s so loud Molly will hear it. This is the second time I’ve been compared to Sherlock Holmes and I don’t think I like it, because I’ve categorized him under one word in my head: _psychopath_. That word seems even more accurate as I’ve found where he primarily spends his pastime. And if I’m being compared so easily to a psychopath, what does that say about me?

That’s when I realize _Sherlock Holmes spends lots of time at Bart’s_. Two months of not-really-searching for him and I’ve walked right into his hunting grounds. I couldn’t ask for better luck.

Hardly a few seconds pass as I think this. Molly doesn’t seem to notice. She gestures to her desk, which resides in the basement half a floor above the mortuary.

“I’ll show you how the paperwork’s supposed to be, and then you’ll see how behind I am…If you can do better than I can, I’d be really grateful.”

By the end of my first day I’ve basically sorted through Molly’s mess of filing and computer work and figured out how it generally flows. Two weeks pass in this fashion and I finally realize Greg basically led me on, filled my head with the idea that I’d actually be working with the corpses. Well, he didn’t say _specifically_ that I’d be handling the bodies, but it was implied. And I feel foolish for thinking I could actually assist Molly with a few post-mortems here and there when I haven’t even finished college. This is no better than the desk job at Scotland Yard I shuddered at a few months ago.

I hold out hope for this job, though, on two simple threads: one, that Molly and I get along well and might actually become friends and two, that I might someday run into Sherlock Holmes. Not that I’d have anything to say to him if I ever did.

A month at Bart’s has boosted my confidence significantly. I have regular interactions with people, and I find out how much easier life seems to be with a routine. Molly and I have gone out for drinks a couple of times, and it was nice for us to talk outside of work and flattering when we both kept getting hit on by guys (and a girl here and there) at the pub.

So much has my confidence been boosted that on slow paperwork days I find myself wandering down to the mortuary. Molly and I idly chat, and she explains what she’s doing when I ask. I can’t really help her so I usually sit on one of the steel slabs and munch on chips while she digs through a corpse like she’s gardening.

This is how Sherlock Holmes finds us as he bursts into the mortuary one Saturday afternoon, on Valentine’s Day no less, talking at breakneck speed as usual.

“Molly, I need to see the Gallagher body. A killer may walk free if–”

He stops and observes the room with narrowed eyes, singling me out as the unusual difference. I have a chip halfway to my mouth and Molly has a spleen raised as Sherlock made his entrance, and the two of us both slowly lower our hands.

“Gallagher is over here,” Molly says nervously as she removes her gloves. She unlocks one of the metal doors and pulls out a covered slab.

Sherlock waits patiently as she exposes a particularly mangled body. He whips out a small, square object and pulls it apart, revealing a magnifying glass the size of a two-pence. He observes the man’s face and the back of his legs for nine seconds – yes, nine, I counted – before promptly closing and returning the magnifying glass to his pocket and turning on his heel for the door.

“Thank you, Molly,” he says with his back to her.

“You’re welcome.” Molly’s voice quivers and she stammers over a few inaudible syllables before blurting out, “Do you want to have a drink with me?”

Sherlock has a half-amused smirk on his lips when he shifts back. “Now? It’s not yet noon. I thought you were rather young to indulge in day-drinking.” With a sweep of his coat he vanishes through the doors.

When Molly and I make eye contact I notice her bottom lip trembling.

“Don’t be offended, I heard he’s always like that,” I say in an attempt to console her.

“I know, it’s just…”

Molly sighs to clear away the tears she’s fighting.

“It’s just he’s overly rude and obnoxious?”

Molly scoffs, but she smiles, conceding my statement.

“Well, on a positive note, he said you were young. Weren’t you worried that you gained crow’s feet overnight when you turned thirty?”

Finally I draw a real laugh from her. The smile lingers as she returns to her work. “I suppose so.”

“Ask him out for coffee or something next time. That’s harder to turn down.”

I watch Molly rearrange the skin on her corpse’s chest in preparation of stitching it back together. My mind wanders back to Sherlock and I find some assurance in the fact that I’m not the only one who is strangely attracted to him. Then I remind myself that Molly and I are probably just as mad as Sherlock is, we just have better social graces. I mean, Molly works in a flipping mortuary, and I’m…well, strange enough to eat chips on a dissecting table while watching a post-mortem. My ego should be taking a real hit.

Then I think of the look Sherlock gave me when he entered the room. He appeared shocked, at least, to see me, and I spend the ten minutes Molly takes to sew up the body to wonder if anybody who walked in as he did would react the same.

Molly and I walk out of the darkened mortuary together twenty minutes later and head for the lift.

“Hey, since Sherlock denied you a drink, I’ll buy you one,” I say. “It’s Valentine’s Day. No reason we should sit at home alone after work.”

“Okay,” she says brightly. “I just need to transcribe the tape from this last post-mortem. You go on, take an early day. I’ll meet you at The Blackfriar? Say eight?”

“Perfect,” I say. That gives me just enough time to make a quick stop before I head home. “See you later.”

I grab my bag from Molly’s office and practically run to Blackfriar Station. If my theory is correct, Sherlock just did some final investigation before running to Greg to produce a grand resolution to some recent murder. I catch the Tube to Westminster Station and resume my fast walk that’s not quite a run so as to avoid strange stares on the street. Once at Scotland Yard I sign my name barely legibly and take the stairs to the fourth floor when the lift takes too long. I arrive at Greg’s office breathless and apparently beet red.

“Hey Kate,” Greg says, then follows up with a double take. “You all right? You look like you got sunburned.”

“I’m – fine,” I say between breaths. I slither into a chair and grab the bottle of water from Greg’s desk and down half of it. “Happy Valentine’s Day. What’s going on? How’re…things?”

“They’re fine.”

“Good, good.”

I nod a few times in the silence. Greg gives me a small, awkward grin and turns his attention back to his paperwork.

“Solved any cases lately?” I ask.

He fights an eye roll as he looks up again. “No, and I won’t if you keep interrupting me. I told you yesterday I was going to be busy today.” He glances at my empty hands. “And you didn’t even bring me chocolates.”

“I thought you were watching your figure,” I point out. Greg glares at me. “Right, okay. I’ll go.” I get to my feet unnecessarily slowly, biding time. Should be any minute now. I sluggishly reach down for my bag and sling it on my shoulder. I straighten my jacket. Flatten my hair. “Well, I’ll see you–”

I notice Greg’s eyes flit to the doorway. Perfect. I turn around and find Sherlock Holmes, hands in his pockets much like he had last time I saw him here. However, unlike the slightly amused yet bored expression he wore last time, his face matches the shocked and now somewhat annoyed look he had at the morgue.

“Hi,” I say brightly, with an obnoxious beam.

Sherlock’s brows furrow together in an expression of confusion I’m sure doesn’t often cross his features. “Are there two of you?” he asks me.

In light of the exulted high that washed over me at the sight of baffling the great Sherlock Holmes, I answer cheekily, “Do you want there to be two of me?”

He blinks twice. “You were just at Bart’s.”

“I can be wherever you want me to be,” I say, grinning.

He draws in the smallest intake of air and turns to Greg, who chuckles slightly when we make eye contact.

“David Cohen killed Nick Gallagher,” Sherlock states simply.

Greg pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sherlock, I told you, we had this one in the bag. We have a witness–”

“Of course you do, and he’s lying–”

Greg sighs loudly. “Sherlock–”

But Sherlock continues as if he hadn’t interrupted. “David Cohen pushed Nick Gallagher off the roof of the tower block. There are tiny scrapes on the back of Gallagher’s calves and cuts around his eyes inconsistent with the impact of the fall. The roof has a ledge thirty-five centimeters high – consistent with the scrapes on the _back_ of his calves where he was reversed against the edge. Cuts around his eyes are from the glass in his lenses that broke when he hit the ground. He wore prescription lenses. If it was suicide Gallagher would have freely jumped, and he would have removed his glasses beforehand – jumpers don’t like to watch themselves die.”

Sherlock resists a satisfied smirk as he watches Greg go through the motions of disbelief, denial, and finally acceptance of Sherlock’s deductions.

“I’ll call the Commissioner,” Greg finally says.

The smirk Sherlock held back finally reveals itself. He turns to leave and our eyes meet again. This time I don’t smile, even out of spite. It’s hard for anyone to look happy when they’re staring at someone whose eyes are narrowed in animosity. Even if they’re a ridiculously gorgeous blue…

“Perhaps I’ll just text you from now on,” Sherlock tells Greg as he leaves.

“You don’t have my number!” Greg calls after him.

From down the hall, Sherlock yells back: “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

Greg shakes his head. “Look, Kate, I was busy before and now Sherlock’s extended my day by at least an hour. I’ve really got to get back to work.”

“That’s fine, see you later!” I say easily, heading for the door.

“How about lunch Sunday?”

“Sure. Perhaps I’ll text you.”

Greg chuckles. “Shut up.”

“’Bye.”

**To be continued…**


End file.
